CHAPTER XXXV.

THE RETURN.

“Oh! if indeed to _part_ With the soul’s loved ones be a bitter thing, When we go forth in buoyancy of heart, And bearing all the glories of our spring, Is it less so to _meet_ When these are withered? Who shall call it sweet?” HEMANS.

The 20th of March, 182-, was a day to be remembered for the terrible storm of wind, snow, and hail that visited the earth, and raged through these latitudes all that tremendous day and night!

It was in the height of this furious tempest, that a packet might _not_ have been seen as it toiled against wind and tide, on its way down Chesapeake Bay,—might _not_ have been seen, for it was as difficult to _see_ through the dense fall of snow, as it was to _breathe_ against the driving, piercing sleet that struck into every pore of the skin and thorax like millions of needle points.

Could you have discerned that packet boat through the shrouds of falling snow, you would have looked upon a bark apparently carved in ice. The deck was blocked up with drifting snow, freezing as it fell, and still increasing against all the efforts of the crew. The masts struck up like shafts of ice, between which the crossing ropes formed a crystal lattice-work. The sails were stiff, stark, and glittering with sleet. And all—ropes, masts, and sails, grew thicker every instant,—losing their distinctness of form as the snow fell fast, congealing on them, until the bark seemed the nucleus of an avalanche, or the skeleton upon which the body of an iceberg was being formed.

The cabin of that little packet was small, deep, and dark, and lighted even in the day by a tiny lamp nailed against the wall. In this low cabin, by the side of the narrow coffin-like berth, sat a pale and ghastly little woman, clothed in a black dress and simple cap, whom you would never recognise to be Hagar. Upon the berth lay two sleeping infants, of nearly twelve months old. She leans heavily with both elbows upon the side of the berth, and supports her drooping head upon her hands. She has sat thus for hours, while the tempest has raged above and around her. She will probably sit there for hours longer unless the children wake, or some one enters to rouse her from her dreamy trance. She does not hear the howling wind, though it beats among the ice-bound and rattling sails and ropes, a thundering accompaniment to its fierce song. She does not see the snow, though it has nearly blocked up the narrow gangway leading down into her cabin. She does not feel the penetrating and piercing cold, though her hands are purple, stiff, and numb. Towards the evening, Gusty May entered the cabin.

“How are you now, Hagar, and how are the children?” inquired he, coming up to her side.

She did not seem to see or hear him. He repeated his question earnestly. She raised her pallid brow and straining glance, and answered, mechanically,—

“Well—we are well.”

“Do the children fatigue you, Hagar? You look so weary; why do you not call me to help to take care of them when they tire you?”

“They never tire me,” replied Hagar.

“Have they brought you any dinner, Hagar? I really do not believe they have. No!—and your fire has been suffered to go out, while I have been on deck all day helping to work the vessel or clear the deck. What a thing it is to see a poor, dear sick girl, with two children, on the water in such a scuttled tub as this bark, without even a female attendant!”

So lamenting, Gusty bustled about, replenished the fire, and going to a locker, brought out a glass of cordial and a cracker, which he compelled her to swallow, saying,

“It is a ‘round, unvarnished’ truth that, if I were not here to kindle your fire and to hold a morsel to your lips, you would starve to death, Hagar! I wonder how long this dreadful apathy is going to last!”

Then setting away the glass and plate, he went to shovelling away the snow from the gangway.

“Passengers for Heath Hall!” sang out a voice from above.

Gusty dropped the shovel and rushed up on deck. Hagar, her children, and himself, were certainly the only passengers for Heath Hall. After an absence of five minutes he returned.

“Hagar! rouse yourself, now, dear Hagar, and answer me; we are nearly opposite to _Heath Hall_!”

The sound of that name was sufficient to arouse her.

“Speak on, Gusty, I am neither dead, deaf, asleep, nor crazy, Gusty, though I must often seem to you to be one or the other. Well, what were you saying about Heath Hall?”

“We are nearly opposite to the promontory, Hagar, and we must now go ashore, or keep on down the bay to the Capes.”

“Oh, go on shore by all means! What suggested the other alternative?”

“What? Poor thing, you know nothing! It is a frightful night to go on shore, Hagar. We stand out a mile from the land, and cannot even see the shore through thick and driving hail and sleet. Then, the beach must be covered knee-deep with snow, and the ascent to the promontory nearly impracticable from ice—that is to say, for _you_, Hagar.”

“For _me_—you forget, Gusty, overwhelmed, as you see me, by mental troubles, you know that I am nearly invincible before physical ills and obstacles. I can see my way through the darkest night that ever shrouded earth—keep my footing firm in the ascent of the most slippery and dangerous precipice in the world. Thank God! my physical powers are not destroyed yet.”

“You are feeling better—your spirits are rising, Hagar.”

“Oh, they are, they are, to be under the shadow of my old Hall again! I think that I shall no sooner step upon my native heath, than I shall feel life and spirits strike up through my feet, filling my whole frame with strength and power.”

“Passengers for Heath Hall, get ready,” yelled a voice from the deck.

“Come, Hagar, get the children and yourself ready quickly, while I see the trunks lowered to the skiff.”

“But, oh! these children! these children! after all, perhaps we had better stay here, than expose _them_ to the storm.”

“They shall not suffer from exposure to the storm; _I_ will carry the babies, and take care of that—so if you think that you can get along and keep your footing ascending the cliff, we had better go ashore notwithstanding all I have said; for it threatens to be a horrible night, and God Almighty only knows what may be the fate of the packet before day.”

Hagar said no more, and Gusty left the cabin. Hagar wrapped her children up in their little warm light blankets and long cloaks, and then put on her own close travelling dress, and had scarcely completed her preparations when Gusty came down again, and assisted her with the children by taking charge of one while she insisted on keeping the other on deck. And what a deck it was! She toiled up the gangway knee-deep in snow, while the sharp and driving sleet cut into her face, nearly blinding and smothering her; it was almost impossible to see a foot in advance; in an instant her whole dress was covered white and stiff with snow, that froze as it fell. It was only her warm breath that kept mouth and nostrils free for breathing, and saved her from a freezing suffocation. Gusty kept hold of one hand; drawing her through the snow-drifts beneath, and the falling avalanche of sleet around, he guided her to the edge of the vessel, lowered the two children half smothered in their wrappings, to the oarsmen in the skiff, handed Hagar down, and descended after her; while the sleet whirling thick around them threatened to convert the little boat with its freight into a huge snowball. The two oarsmen pulled swiftly through the white tempest for the shore—providentially wind and tide were in their favor; they soon reached the beach—but, oh! what a howling wilderness of a shore it was upon this tremendous night! On their left the promontory, like some huge ice-peak of the arctic regions, loomed horribly through storm and darkness; while towards the right the white shore stretched away in a dim horizontal line—a half-guessed vague terror like the shores of the frozen ocean seen through the night. Using their oars as poles they pushed the boat through the rushing water and crusted ice, and landed it upon the beach immediately under the promontory. Pausing a moment to gather breath after their great exertions, the two men took each of them a child, and Gusty drew Hagar’s frost-crusted arm within his own, and they stepped from the boat, and struggled on through the deep snow and against the driving storm to the little fishing-house against the side of the promontory. The wind and sleet were in their face, blowing from behind the other side of the promontory. As they toiled on towards it they found the snow less and less deep, until coming under its cover they trod upon bare though frozen ground, and reaching the fishing-house found it perfectly dry, as the ground was for many yards around it; a better protected place than was the cabin of the ship they had left. Taking away the prop that fastened the door, they entered. The men stood holding the children. Hagar dropped upon an upturned fishing-tub; while Gusty, taking a small wax candle and tinder-box from the pocket of his great coat, struck a light, and holding it about surveyed the premises, as the men, giving the children to Hagar, returned to the boat to fetch the trunks. It was a small but tight and well-finished, weather-proof little place, built against the side of the promontory of rocks cut from its bosom; the walls were plastered, the floor paved, and an ample fire-place on the right of the entrance, faced a large window on the left. It had been built as a place of deposit for fishing tackle, and as a kitchen for dressing the freshly caught fish, crabs, and oysters, when the Churchills varied their hospitality by an improvised fish feast upon the beach.

Gusty surveyed the capabilities of the place, poked the candle and his nose into holes and corners, among broken fishing-rods, old flag-baskets, staves of fallen down tubs, footless pots, and topless kettles, &c., and then sticking the candle against the side of the chimney, he collected some of the old flag-baskets, and breaking them up, piled them in the fire-place and set fire to them—they blazed and roared delightfully up the chimney, diffusing agreeable light and warmth. Then drawing a rude stool to the chimney-corner, and going up to Hagar, he took the two children from her arms, and told her to pull off her snow-covered riding habit and sit there. She did so, and held out her arms to receive the children back. He set them in her lap, and going to the pile of staves, brought and threw them on the burning embers of the flag-baskets, making a great fire, whose light glowed all over the small room, heating it pleasantly. Then he hung up her riding habit to dry, and digging out an old tea-kettle from the pile of rubbish, he clapped his hat upon his head and went out to fill it at a spring that bubbled from the rock by the side of the house; returning he set it on the fire, just as the voices of the men were heard approaching the cabin. They came in, each with a large trunk upon his shoulder, and bearing another by the handles between them. They came in and setting down their burdens prepared to depart and return to the packet—but Gusty, with a gesture, detained them, as he knelt at the side of one of the trunks, and opening it, took out a bottle of brandy, some spices, and a mug, and gave “something to protect them against suffering through the inclemency of the weather.”

They then departed, leaving Gusty, Hagar, and the children, sole occupants of the cabin.

“It is vain to think of trying to reach the Hall to-night, Hagar,” said Gusty, as he pulled off his greatcoat and hung it near the fire to thaw and dry. “And we must just stay here till morning,” he continued, and turning a tub bottom upwards he drew it up to the fire and seated himself, watching and tending the kettle as it progressed towards boiling. “If the men could possibly have stopped and lent us their assistance in carrying the children, I might have helped you, and—but, no! even then it would have been impossible on this frightful night! We should have got lost, and floundered about in snow-drifts until morning, if we had not perished before then; the snow is so much deeper than I had any idea of before leaving the packet,” and Gusty, taking a stick, and passing it through the handle, lifted the boiling kettle from the fire, and set it on the hearth, saying, “I am going to make you some spice tea, Hagar, to restore your circulation and send out a perspiration; you are chilled to death, your hands are livid,” and putting some cloves into the mug, he poured some of the boiling water upon it and set it down to steep.

All this time, Hagar had heard his remarks without replying to them—seen his efforts for her comfort without acknowledging them; because, after her sudden rise of spirits, she had again sunk into apathy. Soon he took a little rude table—once used in cooking operations—and turning it bottom upwards, and gathering all their outside coverings that were now dried, he made a little warm bed for the babies, and begged Hagar to lay them in it. She did so, covered them up snugly, and resumed her seat.

“I wish, Hagar,” said he, as he handed her the mug of spice tea, “I _do_ wish that there was a place where you could lie down and take some sleep.”

She smiled sadly and shook her head faintly.

“I know _now_ what to do,” he said, receiving the empty mug from her hand and setting it on the hearth; “yes, I know what to do now,” and taking her riding habit, he hung it from the corner of the mantel-piece down against the wall behind her, and said, “Now, adjust your stool comfortably, Hagar, and lean upon that; you will rest better, and perhaps you will sleep. I shall sit here in front of the hearth, and watch to keep the fire going.”

And so the party remained through all that stormy night. _But!_ Hagar had better have braved the fearful ascent of the precipice through that terrible storm—had better have perished in the snow—on that horrible night, than have lived to defy the more fatal tempest of calumny raised by her lodging in the fishing-house, and that soon roared and raved around her, striking thunderbolts upon her devoted head.